There is no escaping the solar system, not at speed anyway

12 August 2026

The Voyager 1 space probe is almost one light-day away from Earth. But the craft has been on its trajectory since being launched in 1977.

Deep space flights carrying people will need to move at far greater speed if they are to, for example, reach Alpha Centaur, the star system closest to the Sun, in a reasonable amount of time.

But travel at high speed, even relatively high speed, such as twenty-percent the speed of light, poses another set of problems. Minute particles litter the interstellar voids, and could severely damage a vessel, should a collision occur.

An object the size of playing marble would strike a ship with bullet-like impact given the speed involved. Vessels could be fitted with shielding of some sort, but the sheer volume of particle strikes would eventually destroy any protective cladding.

Unless a way can be found to overcome this problem, or the laws of physics can (somehow) be bent, humanity may well not be able to venture too far from the solar system.

Zuckerberg says AI will improve your relationships. Did an AI scam bot tell him that?

12 August 2026

Tangentially related to the previous post. A few days ago Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published the company’s latest AI vision. Or the one for this week at least. And the future is rosy, incredibly rosy.

If Meta has it their way, everyone will have access to their own “exceptionally capable” agent ~~— must Meta use URLs that look like someone typed out a random string of keyboard characters? —~~ (edit: URL amended) that seemingly will be able to help with anything at all:

Everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about. Your agent will work 24/7 on your behalf to improve your relationships, health, career, finances, home management, hobbies, and more.

But I’d be concerned about the relationship advice this agent intends to dispense.

As we learned from my post yesterday, some AI agents, particularly those attempting to scam people, specialise in faking relationships. One can only hope Meta’s relationship guidance agent is not taking cues from such scam agents.

RELATED CONTENT

artificial intelligence, technology

AI scam bots better at faking relationships than human scammers

11 August 2026

There’s good news and there’s bad news, but in reality not much is really good. The good, such that it is; AI bots could well put scammers out of work.

The bad; the AI scammers are far more effective at deceiving people.

Disturbingly though, these are scams that involve entering into a fake relationship with the intended victim. In other words, AI bots appear to be better at faking human relationships than people.

Take a minute to think about that.

The human scammers, meanwhile, having been put out work, might instead look for an honest way to make a living. That would be a plus.

But here’s the problem. If AI scammer bots are so adept at tricking people, what else might they be capable of? Putting yet more people out of work? Or is there nothing whatsoever to worry about?

Catastrophic disasters hit Earth every twenty-seven-million years

11 August 2026

We’re talking about things like mass extinctions and major geological events.

Scientists are not exactly sure why momentous upheavals seem to occur at approximately the same intervals, but they have theories. These range from Earth’s position in space over time, relative to our galaxy’s mid-plane, to the (extremely slow) process of heat transfer within the planet’s mantle.

The question though, where are we in the current twenty-seven-million year cycle, at present?

RELATED CONTENT

history, science

Deserts, sea water, the AI data centre problem solved. Seriously

10 August 2026

Tech bros across the world have been giving everyone a right ear-bashing in the last few years about their AI agents, and the need for data centres to power them. And they’ve been crying foul in response to the environmental concerns many have expressed.

Tech bros worldwide are annoyed we don’t want to share our power and water supplies with them.

They’re unhappy we don’t want their data centres near the places we live, work, and send our kids to school. The tech bros are furious that we cannot seem to grasp the big picture. A prosperous and happy future of one-hundred percent dependence on their AI technologies is worth a few sacrifices.

Is it not?

Can’t we, the little people, cut back on our water and power consumption? Can’t we accept a little bit more climate change precipitated by water and power hungry data centres, is a small price to pay?

Wait up. Did I just say climate chnage? The phenomenon wreaking all sorts of havoc across the world, the driver of rising sea levels, temperatures, and unpredictable weather? Is not that sort of stuff the answer here? Not wild storms, and destructive bush fires.

No, I mean rising sea levels and warmer temperatures. Warmer temperatures must be the result of more sunlight getting through, right? That’s logical, isn’t it? Can you see what I’m getting at? You can’t be a much smart tech bro, if you don’t. That extra sunlight can be put to good use.

So people don’t want data centres near where they live. Fair enough. Who wants their golf club to make way for one? Not the tech bros. The solution is obvious. Build the data centres where no one lives. Like a desert. Ok, sure. But what about power? There’s no power infrastructure in the desert.

No problem. Build large solar panel arrays. No one lives in the desert, so no one will be around to complain about the solar panels. Ditto the data centres. But wouldn’t the cost of solar panel arrays be prohibitive? Sure, but again, no problem. Simply increase the price of AI tokens. Just slightly.

That solves the power problem. What about water? There’s gnenerally not much water in a desert. And, depending who you listen to, AI data centres either use enormous quantities of water, or hardly any at all. Either way, people don’t want thirsty data centres guzzling any amount of water.

What to do? The solution is obvious.

Pipe it in. End of story. That’s not really the end of the story, but anyone, even the little people, can surely see the logic. Sea levels are rising. That means there’s plenty of water at hand. But AI data centres in the desert may be hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres, from the ocean.

No problem, pipelines are still the answer. If something like the Guildford West pipehead and water supply canal, in the west of Sydney, Australia, can be brought into being, the tech bros can do something similar out in the desert. Bonus points if gravity feeds alone can somehow be used.

Sure, the Guildford West system is only about sixteen kilometres total length. But if pipes can span sixteen kilometres, simple logic says they can go further. And don’t forget about the East–West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which is about twelve-hundred kilometres long.

But wouldn’t the cost of building massive pipe systems be prohibitive? Sure, but again, no problem. Simply increase the price of AI tokens. Just slightly.

I think we’ve covered off everything.

The tech bros can have their data centres, and the rest of us won’t even know they exist. Plus one or two problems occasioned by global warming will be resolved. Well, maybe one. If you believe the ocean can be drained with a tea cup.

Of course, I expect no one to take any of what I said the least bit seriously. Really I don’t. Particularly the tech bros who want to solve this very problem. Besides, they don’t read my website.

But perhaps I speak too soon. They might ask one of their AI agents about the feasibility of building data centres in the desert, in the manner I’ve prescribed. Then they might learn about this suggestion, since my website’s content is scraped all too often by their AI bots.

Can I then expect the tech bros offer me any recompense? Anything at all. A single lousy AI token even? Yes, I’m quite certain that will happen. When hell freezes over.

Foto Walks 2026, happening on Saturday 26 September 2026

8 August 2026

Foto is a photo sharing platform I should really use more often. I originally signed up just over a year ago, but haven’t really used it much lately.

Possibly because of my attitude at the moment to apps, and anything that is too much like social media. Nonetheless, I ought to post a little more.

But Foto is the place to be if you want to escape the clutches of older photo sharing platforms, namely Instagram. More so if your interest is primarily in photography, rather than been held captive to algorithms and the poor quality — for want of a better word — content, served up by them.

A significant difference between Foto and many other photo sharing platforms though, are the efforts of operators to foster face-to-face, in person communities.

This through what are called Foto Walks. Members in the same region or city get together, and spend a few hours wandering around, seeking photo opportunities.

The walks started last year, and now Foto are looking for people to organise, and host, the events which will take place on Saturday 26 September 2026. I missed the Sydney event last year — being the one closest to where we are — but will maybe make it this time.

RELATED CONTENT

photography, photos, social media

Time Travel for Beginners, a novel by Sydney author Jaclyn Moriarty

8 August 2026

I’ve been talking about time-travel stories recently, so here’s another one, this time a book. Time Travel for Beginners, is the latest novel by Sydney based Australian author Jaclyn Moriarty.

If you can find a shop called the Time Travel Agency, located somewhere in Sydney, then you too may be able to travel through what some people call the fourth dimension:

The guidelines are simple: you can go whenever you wish into the past, and there’s no fear of altering the present. Have tea with Jane Austen, scream at a Beatles concert, witness the Olympics in ancient Greece. Perhaps a more personal trip? Visit your long-lost grandmother, recapture the heady days of your youth, return to the idyllic time when your teen was a babbling baby — or watch yourself make the one decision that changed everything.

Is it a hoax? And if it’s real, what’s the catch?

When single mother Anna is offered a job at the agency, she glimpses the possibility of happiness. Meanwhile, Teddy’s a customer hoping to untangle his recently imploded marriage. And Jade, who has a deeply buried secret, despises the agency for offering false hope.

The line about there being no fear of altering the present (ah, the Grandfather Paradox), reminds me a little of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s 2015 time travel novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Visitors to a particular cafe in Tokyo, Japan, can, subject to a number of stipulations, travel to the past. They cannot however change anything in the past, and must return to the cafe in the present day before their coffee gets cold. Not too much time to unravel the spacetime continuum there.

Back to Moriarty though. Writing is clearly a talent running through her family. Sisters Liane Moriarty, and Nicola Moriarty, are also accompanied authors.

A Future on Stage, adapting Back to the Future to the stage

7 August 2026

We missed the sadly short-lived stage adaptation of the 1985 time-travel escapade movie Back to the Future (BTTF), during its brief Australian run, in late 2025. I did however catch A Future on Stage, trailer, a documentary about bringing the original film to the stage as a musical.

The words “we didn’t think we could do this”, and “we had no idea what we were doing”, and similar such, may have been uttered a few times too many throughout — since we know the show eventually succeeded — but otherwise the feature was fun to watch.

Producing films and stage shows are probably equally difficult in their own ways.

It was reassuring to hear Bob Gale, co-creator of the BTTF film trilogy categorically rule out prequels, sequels, and spinoffs, at least so long as he and Robert Zemeckis retain control the story rights.

Despite relatively long runs in the United Kingdom and United States, Back to the Future The Musical didn’t fly in Australia, and played for just four months in Sydney. The disappointing run was attributed to cost-of-living pressures, and the high cost of staging the show locally.

Music, Fashion, Film, the new Charli XCX album

7 August 2026

British musician Charli XCX released her eighth studio album, Music, Fashion, Film, in July 2026. Not so much of the glitchcore this time around, though there’s one or two (digital) scratches in the mix.

RELATED CONTENT

Charli XCX, entertainment, music

Edition four-hundred of Dense Discovery published this week

7 August 2026

The popular weekly email newsletter, written by Melbourne based Australia curator and publisher Kai Brach, has actually been published five-hundred-and-seventy-nine times, but earlier editions were written under another title. But who’s counting?

True to its tagline, “one email worth opening, every week”, Dense Discovery (DD) is something I’ve been reading for years. Er, this is via the web rather than email, but DD is certainly one website worth reading every week, for all things art, design, technology, and culture.

Here’s to the next four-hundred — or should that be five-hundred-and-seventy-nine? — editions.

1 2 … 228 NEXT